Elena Gerhardt, in those days, was large, white and serene. She was a little bitter, perhaps, and certainly greatly disappointed. I met her in Manchester shortly after my return to England, and found her mind insipid, her soul tepid.
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Egon Petri had phlegm almost British: a real slogger: most uninspired: the possessor of faultless technique: the possessor of a brain that retained everything but expounded nothing. He had business ability and pushed ahead all the time: pushed ahead all the time, but never arrived anywhere. Never will arrive anywhere in particular, except at his own well-cleaned doorstep, where the polished knocker will respond to his carefully gloved hand.
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Richard Strauss I also met in Manchester at about the same time. I have always maintained that, in at least one case out of three, it is unwise to judge a man by his face.
But I must for a moment digress. This question of [224] ]faces is most interesting. Every man, of course, makes his own face: even the most ugly of us will concede that much, for, if we are, and know we are, ugly, we always console ourselves with the thought: “Yes, but it is a special kind of ugliness. There is strength in my ugliness. There is character; there is soul. My ugliness is original. There is no ugliness quite like my ugliness.” For, so long as we are different from other people, that is all that matters. Now, in making our faces—a process that is always continuous from the time we are born to the moment of death—some of us are full of anxiety to make, not a face, but a mask. Our faces do not express our souls: they hide them. The consequence of this is that you will sometimes, though not often, meet a man with a mean, insignificant face who is, in reality, the possessor of a first-rate brain. But it is difficult to repress some facial hint of intellect; try how one may, one can do little to modify the shape of one’s brow or give the eye a sodden and unintelligent look.
Richard Strauss has disguised himself. At close quarters one sees at once that his head is both shapely and well poised: one notices the exceptionally high forehead, the firm rounded lips, the determined chin. “A financier,” you say to yourself; “at all events, if not a financier, a man of affairs, a man accustomed to deal with and order facts. Certainly not a dreamer—not a poet or a musician or an artist of any kind.”
He exhibits no emotion. Self-restrained, he speaks little but very much to the point. Even in moments of great success, he is reserved and businesslike. You can never take him unawares. He is guarded, on the alert, watchful. “All mind but no heart,” you say; at least, you say that if you are a careless observer.
His tastes are of the simplest and though, for a composer, he has amassed a large amount of money, he is absurdly economical. He rather likes abuse, and when [225] ]a critic makes a fool of himself he is inordinately amused. The spectacle of human vanity and human folly excites him. His handshake is firm, his regard direct.
His piano-playing is beautifully neat and polished, but he is not a virtuoso on the instrument.